Page 136 of Bedeviled

“I think I deserve a cookie for my self-restraint.”

“I think you deserve a good spanking,” Sybil counters.

“Only if your dad’s the one doing it.”

“Selene!” Sybil says, horrified. “I need to bleach my ears.”

“Just remember that you’re the one who called me,” I say, sliding the book in my hand onto the mostly empty shelf in front of me.

“Clearly that was a mistake.”

“Awww, don’t say that. I like any excuse I get to talk about dear old daddy.”

“I should tell my dear old daddy about this slander. You’d never get invited to dinner again.”

“Fine. I’ll drop the issue. But only because I like your family dinners.” The few times I’d been to them.

“Good,” she says, sounding pleased.

It’s quiet between us for a moment, and in that silence, the lightness bleeds away.

“How are you doing?” I finally ask.

Sybil gives a broken little laugh, and I tense. “I’m all over the place.”

“Well obviously you have to elaborate on that,” I say, heading back to the box of books I’ve been pulling out.

“I don’t even know where to begin,” she says faintly.

I withdraw another book, Lunar Magic for Beginners. Definitely going to be shelved under magical specialties.

“How about we start with the moment I last saw you,” I say. “What happened after that?”

She sucks in a breath. “I…shifted.”

“So it happened?” I say, a bit breathless. Of course I assumed it did, but actually imagining it now is wild.

“Mhm.” She sounds like she’s rolling her lips together.

“What was it like?”

“Shifting was…excruciating,” she admits. “I’ve never felt pain like that. It was like my magic and body were rejecting one another.”

I chew my lower lip. “From what I saw, it looked like that too.”

There’s a long silence, and my stomach sours at the heaviness in it.

“But,” she finally continues, “being a lycan was—is—incredible. Seriously indescribable. I could never have imagined having the sort of freedom I feel when I’m in my wolf form.”

I nearly drop the book in my hand. “Sybil, that’s—I’m so happy.” I realize as I’m saying it that I am smiling. I’ve been so afraid for my friend, not just the shift, but her conflicted emotions around it.

“Yeah, it’s…amazing. I’m sorry if I scared you there for a while.”

“You really did,” I say, moving to shelve the book in my hand in the Magical Specialties section of my library. “It doesn’t matter. Now I need to know—did you howl at the moon?”

“All freaking night—and last night too,” she says unapologetically, and the two of us laugh together.

Once we quiet, Sybil clears her throat, and I can feel the mood sobering up again. “Kane told me about the demon attack.”